Surface Mount Technology is now the preferred method of automated production of electronic printed circuit boards. Machines for pick-and-place mounting of components on a substrate, such as a Printed Circuit Board (PCB), or a substrate for a System in Package (SiP) component are subject to different, often contradictory demands, such as mounting speed, mounting precision, size, prize, etc. The expression “pick and place” is understood by the person skilled in the art as describing the very mounting operation where a mounting head is moved to a component feeder area, where the mounting head picks one or more components from one or more of the component feeders, and then is moved to a mounting area where the mounting head places the component or components on the substrate.
Supplies of a certain type of component (e.g., a certain specified type of capacitor, resistor, diode, IC, etc.) are supplied on trays carrying one type of component or on sticks or, as has become most common today, on tapes in reels with a series of pockets of appropriate depth in the tape, holding one component in each pocket. The reels have varying widths between about 8 mm and about 44 mm. A row of reels, each reel representing a different type of component, are placed in a bin which in turn is placed in a magazine and feed components into the pick-and-place machine as the nozzle arms rapidly pick components out of their pockets and place them on the board. Component manufacturers deliver the components in standard reels of pocket-tape with a thin cover tape closing the pockets. This pocket cover tape must be removed by some method before the component can be picked out of its pocket.
Tape guides or feeders are used to feed the tape into the pick-and-place machine as the components are picked out of the pockets. One such tape guide or feeder is described in EP 1 381 265 B1, incorporated herein by reference. This type of component tape guide or feeder has no built-in tape advancing mechanism. Rather, the tape guide or feeder is mounted for use in the pick-and-place machine so that a feeding mechanism, e.g. a feeding wheel in the pick-and-place machine protrudes through the tape guide or feeder into contact with the pre-threaded tape. Another type of component tape guide has a built-in tape advancing mechanism. The tape guide or feeder is mounted for use in the pick-and-place machine so that an in-feeder built-in feeding mechanism or tape advancing mechanism advances the tape, e.g. a feeding wheel in the feeder into contact with the pre-threaded tape.
Each tape guide or feeder has a specific identity in relation to the pick-and-place machine and in whatever sequential position the reel with its pre-threaded tape guide or feeder is placed in the machine, the mounting machine robotics will properly find and pick-up the proper components from the tape pockets. A method of associating the identity of the tape guide or feeder used to the specifics of the components in the tape threaded into the guide or feeder is described in EP 1 147 697 B1, incorporated herein by reference.
Generally, within the field of manufacture and assembly of circuit boards, electronic components are fed to a component mounting machine for mechanically and/or electrically mounting the components onto a circuit board. These surface mounted components are often delivered spaced apart along the length of a component tape. Generally, two different types of component tapes are used. The first type consists of a lower carrier tape, preferably plastic, provided with component holding compartments, which are enclosed by a separable, thin, plastic upper cover, or cover tape or protective tape.
The second type consists of a cardboard body provided with through holes. The body is provided with separable, thin, plastic, top and bottom cover tapes, thus forming component compartments with the through holes. For ease of description, the term cover tape will hereinafter
After having positioned the electronic components in their corresponding compartments, the cover tape is attached to the carrier tape, and the component tape is wound on a component tape holder, which within the art generally consists of a component tape reel. The attachment of the cover tape to the carrier tape can, for instance, be performed by providing either or both of the cover tape and the carrier tape with adhesive areas, or by fusing the cover tape to the carrier tape. Then, the component holder is transferred to a component mounting machine, which feeds a component to a certain predetermined picking position where it can be picked, or collected, by a pick-up head.
According to a method conventionally used within the art, the loading of a component tape in a component mounting machine involves the following steps: Placing the component tape reel into the reel holder of a component mounting machine, or into a tape magazine of a component mounting machine; introducing the free end of the component tape into a feeding mechanism, provided in the machine or in the magazine, such that feeding pins engage corresponding holes provided in the component tape; separating, by hand, the end of the cover tape from the end of the carrier tape for a distance sufficient for the cover tape to be engaged with a cover tape handling device, generally a bobbin onto which the cover tape can be wound; and lowering a locking mechanism over the carrier tape for holding the carrier tape against the feeding mechanism.
Another method that also has been suggested involves, briefly, the steps of loading a component tape of a component tape reel into a tape guide, placing the component tape reel into the reel holder of a component mounting machine or into a magazine, and mounting the tape guide into the machine and/or the magazine.
In both these methods, the magazine or the portion of the component mounting machine into which a component tape to be used in a mounting process is loaded must be idle during the loading process. If a large number of component tapes are to be loaded, the idle time may be significant.
Bins, as an example of a carrier in the technology disclosed, are in conventional systems used to house a row of reels in a magazine as the pick-and-place machine picks components out of the pockets of the pocket-tape. A bin has a predefined number of slots adapted to receive component tape reels. One such bin is shown in WO03024181 A1, incorporated herein by reference.
An object of the technology disclosed is to provide a more efficient and less error-prone method and system for handling changeovers and replenishment work associated with a Surface Mount Technology (SMT) job.